At the airport, a uniformed immigration officer took my daughter’s phone, made her open her bank app, and browsed through it, without her even seeing what he was looking at. This wasn’t airport security; it was a daylight invasion. There’s a difference between protecting the nation’s borders and trampling on a citizen’s privacy with impunity.
This is where we draw the line. The Bureau of Immigration has every right to screen passengers, but that right ends where a citizen’s constitutional protections begin. Our digital lives are not open borders. An app showing a person’s private bank records should not be fair game for anyone in uniform, least of all when the owner is not allowed to watch what is being searched. It is not only unethical—it’s terrifying. And while the officer may argue it’s part of screening protocols, we cannot pretend that consent under duress is anything but coercion. If passengers are unable to refuse, then they are no longer travelers—they are hostages of the state.
What’s worse is that there is a known history of corruption inside our airports. “Tanim-bala,” extortion, mysterious delays, and now, phone intrusion—these are not isolated cases. These are symptoms of an institutional rot that has taken root in the very halls meant to ensure our freedom of movement. If even just one immigration officer abuses his power, the entire system is tarnished. Who’s to say that the officer didn’t take a screenshot of my daughter’s bank balance? Who’s to say nothing was transferred while she was made to look away? The trauma of being violated is just as real, even if nothing was actually stolen, because trust was the first thing taken.
The airport is not just a physical space; it is a theater of control. Here, citizens are stripped of power, told to obey first and ask questions later. But blind obedience is never part of a healthy democracy. When the state demands access to one’s body, bag, and now bank account, without transparency or oversight, it stops being a guardian and becomes a predator. The technology in our pockets has made us more vulnerable, and unfortunately, it has also empowered the wrong people in power to pry, to peek, and to possibly plunder.
It’s easy for government offices to justify these acts in the name of national security or anti-trafficking protocols. But let’s be clear—there’s a world of difference between catching criminals and treating every outbound passenger like a suspect. If anything, the overreach pushes the line so far back that actual human traffickers now know exactly what to avoid, while ordinary citizens bear the brunt of an oppressive and inconsistent screening system. It’s a sloppy, misplaced dragnet disguised as diligence.
And where are the guardrails? Where is the accountability? No written policy says immigration officers may rifle through private bank apps, and yet it happens. Who watches the watchers? Where can a victim even begin to report a case like this, without fearing further delays, blacklisting, or humiliation? The imbalance of power is paralyzing. If you speak up, you miss your flight. If you stay quiet, you lose your dignity. Either way, you pay a price—and it’s a price that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
We are long past the age where security meant physical bags and boarding passes. These days, a stranger in uniform can ask for your passwords, rifle through your phone, and look you in the eye as if it were his right. And we’ve let it slide, because we’ve been trained to comply. But compliance should never be mistaken for consent, and silence does not mean approval. There must be space, even at the boarding gate, to question abuses of power. To say “no” when something feels wrong. To be protected, not punished, for standing by your rights.
There needs to be a reckoning. The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration must issue clear policies and draw the line on what can and cannot be done in the name of screening. Officers must be trained not just to enforce laws but to understand the dignity of those they face across their counters. If the system allows even one officer to quietly exploit another’s digital life, then it is not security that wins—it is fear.
